226 - For what war is

My eyes opened wide to sweating darkness. It was the death-hour or not much later, the half-remembered shade of a bad dream faded except for the hollowness of fear, and I lay worrying, it having occurred to me that I might be entirely mistaken about what I’d read in Kallijas’s eyes, when if I must worry about anything it should be my war.

Let me make love to him, when he’s only done it once in his life? I thought. How likely is that? He’s one of those hold-his-nose-to-pass-on-his-brilliance-for-the-sake-of-the-Empire heroes. No two people can be one to that degree… when I was with him I smelled like the awful smoke of a building being burned, and my face was all red… it is wrong for me to love him anyway, it’s as if I’m taking the blood of Yeolis on his hands onto my own, which were already red with it from the Mezem… I found myself wishing the duel back. The pain of a peak experience: one must come down from the peak back into the ordinary.

Another bitterness occurred to me: he’d said he wanted to give himself to me as vanquished to victor, and in my Yeoli heart I had, in truth, figured that was just the trappings, and it would be love and pleasure he took from it. Now I realized, he had truly meant vanquished to victor. A man’s a virgin at twenty-six, he must see chastity as his strength, like the refraining hero, and sex as unclean, not the highest expression of love—else how could he not have done it by now, other than when dragged to it by his warriors? So, whatever I did, he’d think of it as obligation and subjugation, and take no pleasure in it. I could not do it unless he took pleasure, and so—my eyes filled instantly with tears as I thought this—I should never do it.

Yet I’d felt what felt from his eyes, and from his touch. Whatever he thought, his natural urges had broken through. A Haian will tell you, ultimately nature cannot be denied.

When I remembered being in his presence, all the darkness was gone as fast as dust when you blow it off a jewel. With him, I had absolute certainty. I wanted him desperately, but what we had, I realized, transcended even that, so that if we never had sex, all would still be well. There was ecstasy just in knowing he existed. I lay amazed at myself. How was that possible?

That day, I did something I’d been planning to do as soon as we took back Vae Arahi: sent a force of five-hundred, all good at forest cut-and-run fighting, east. The Arkans had begun a road through the mountains from Akara to Vae Arahi. A good idea, in truth, as it could be useful to us, but I didn’t want such an easy way for an Arkan army to get here once I was gone. We’d halt the Arkan road-builders now, and then pick up the work ourselves, if Assembly approved the expense, after the war was over.

I also invited Abatzas to parley, so as to propose ransoming Kallijas. I debated with myself whether to take him (no point in asking him his choice, as he’d just say it was up to me) and decided against. It would go like all haggles: I’d naturally sing his praises, and Abatzas counter by abasing him. I didn’t want to subject him to that, especially while he was still weak.

Abatzas and I met by the shore of the lower end of Lake Terera. He came in pomp to such a ridiculous decree—the medals, the gold, the gold horse-trappings on his race-winner, the big entourage—that I could tell he felt diminished. I wondered if he’d received any sort of reprimand, until I saw it was too early; he’d hardly send a pigeon to tell Kurkas he’d lost Vae Arahi. The Pages might get it to Arko first.

As Abatzas came closer, I saw he was wearing around his neck a golden Karas Raikas figure, such as you could buy at the concession stands in the Mezem and elsewhere in Arko when I’d been there, except that this one was altered so it hung by its neck, like an Arkan thief from a gibbet. No doubt he felt his sense of humour was as superb as everything else about him.

He had Ichinesa again, on a neck-chain and walking gingerly in that particular way a person does after having been flogged with the ten-beaded whip. I saw the streaks where it had wrapped around his one shoulder as he approached, and a mark on his face that looked like it might have been from an Arkan-style switch. For the miniscule gesture of honour to both Kallijas and me, of picking a letter up from the dirt, he’d paid.

“Be quick about it, slave,” Abatzas growled, down his nose, as we halted horses. “It will do its job.”

“The Honourable General asks you state your business,” Ichinesa said to me, as formally as he’d spoken in Assembly Palace in public session. “I am here to make sure it is all clear.” My Arkan was probably as good or better than his, but he had orders. I wanted so badly to free him.

“That’s not necessary, Ichinesa. We’ll be clearer talking straight to each other.” I looked at Abatzas and switched to one-down Arkan. “That one cannot guess my business?”

“It wished to speak to me. I am graciously granting it my hearing,” he sniffed.

“Not even a slight clue?” I shouldn’t anger him; but then he was angry anyway. Over nothing, it seemed, and much of the time.

“I do not have time for such games. We are done here.” He turned his horse’s head with a jerk on its mouth that was purposelessly cruel.

“Your Imperator has no value for Kallijas Itrean?”

He turned his horse back to face me again. “There is no such solas, save in the rolls of the dead,” he pronounced.

“Yes, there is; he was carried straight to a Haian and is healing well. I am promised that he will not lose the use of the arm.”

“Why would I wish to know of the welfare of a slave of yours?” Corpse to slave, I thought; that’s an improvement. He’d slipped to equal-to-equal somehow, so I returned the politeness, to my relief.

“Because—do I really need to explain this?—he need not remain so.”

He sighed, in a long-suffering way. “A child would understand a subtle hint. I do not want him back. I have counted him among the dead. He does not exist to Arko any longer. I have denied his family his death benefit for his abysmal failure on the field, as well as active insubordination. Do I need to make it clearer?”

I had been right not to bring Kallijas. The thought of how this would feel to him made my own heart ache. Denying solas families death-benefits if the solas was in a loss, I had not heard of before. Perhaps Abatzas would make it his policy? Good way not to pay much of them at all, I thought. Perhaps Kurkas would accept it as a budget-stretching measure.

“You mean you will fabricate his death?” That had interesting possibilities, if it was true. Surely he’d be in trouble for lying to his Imperator? Of course it was Arko, so I could not be sure.

“I ordered the man’s death. What you do with the corpse does not matter to me.”

“No, you rescinded that,” I reminded him. “‘Take him, enjoy him,’ you said, and all your army heard, and they saw him carried away alive. As did the Pages man. I wonder if you risk straining your friendship with your Imperator. He had nothing against Kallijas, as I recall, since his record of service to Imperium is so brilliant.”

“He is dead to Arko, on my word!” Abatzas snapped. “Should He Whose Whim is the Will of the World decide otherwise, then He shall so inform me. Until then there is no living solas by the name of Kallijas Itrean. If he is still breathing, Arko does not care.”

Why am I fooling myself?, I thought. Kurkas will hate Kallijas as much as Abatzas does, or more, when he finds out he lost to me. He might only want him back to punish. My mind curled writhing away from that thought like a caterpillar from a firebrand.

“You do not offer me even a little?” I said, on the vague thought that if we even started talking about money, he might go up enough. I had learned the price Artira and Kurkas had more or less agreed on for my ransom: some one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand gold chains, which was more than the treasury had; she’d planned to throw herself on the mercy of Brahvniki. I’d decided to ask half that, and let myself be haggled down by ten or twenty thousand, but not more. “Throwing away such a warrior is not the wisest strategy.” Of course you’ve already done it, letting me know how much you understand this.

“I’ll be generous,” he said. “If He Who Is the World’s Expression wishes to express His displeasure on the dead man...” He sniffed, the picture of Arkan disdain. “I shall offer you a copper chain for the corpse, either on its legs or on a litter.”

I had been so right, not to bring Kallijas. I had to make sure this didn’t get back to him until he was strong. None of Abatzas’s entourage was a Pages man, I knew, from the absence of noteboards. I looked beyond, to the camp; there was someone eagerly looking, who had one, but he was out of earshot unless we yelled.

“What?” I bellowed in my battlefield voice, as if I were amazed and furious. “One copper chain for Kallijas Itrean?” I saw him look down, to write, and some of Abatzas’s party go very still. The whole Arkan army would know by tonight, and Abatzas would have some interesting questions from the news-scribe to answer. Perhaps he’d be so good as to fully explain his thinking, if it can be called that. I’d keep the Pages away from Kallijas.

Abatzas answered me only by turning his horse’s rump to me and setting off at a trot back to his camp, yanking Ichinesa off with him. Next parley, I thought, I’m going to free him somehow.

I took light training with the darya semanakraseye elite and called drill for the greater army as usual, in the square. Of course, in the breaks, everyone asked me how the ransom negotiations had gone, and I had to say, “Hopelessly,” and then they were asking when Kallijas’s execution would be, assuming without question it would be before the assembled army. When we were finished and heading with towels for the beach, Lurao Shae-Lasinga, Krena’s little sister, fell into step beside me, then pulled me away from everyone else.

“I want a piece of him,” she said. She didn’t need to say who. “I’ll take his head off gladly for you.”

“That line’s been forming for a while,” I said.

She sighed. “I know. But next of kin of those he killed should be at the front of it, shouldn’t we? While he’s still breathing, when Krena isn’t, I hate my life. I have to think of our parents.”

Right then, I hated mine. I was suddenly sick, the sweat of exercise suddenly feeling like the sweat of illness. Everyone here knew better than I what Kallijas had been to them. Including Kallijas himself, and hence his last desire and substantiation.

“Lurao... this is war,” I said. “There are lots of people who aren’t still breathing.”

“Right, right. Get in line.” Her lips tightened, and she spat on the road-stones. “All-Spirit… how many people aren’t still breathing because of him, personally?”

“How many lives have I personally taken, or will I by the end of it?” I asked. “A champion is what every warrior strives to be.”

She froze, staring at me. “Fourth Chevenga… you are talking as if you plan not to kill him at all!”

Cheeks, don’t go red. I tried to will them not to, and my voice to stay light. “Well, I might not,” I said. “I haven’t exhausted every other possibility. Abatzas won’t deal fairly for him, but he’s only one general. Kallijas”—she spat when I said his name—“is very well-loved in Arko, has a lot of friends and supporters. And Abatzas won’t necessarily be in his position forever… or even much longer, if Kurkas or whoever decides there has a lick of sense.”

“Of course he’s well-loved, by child-rapers and torturers,” she hissed. “I think he’s worth more to us dead than alive, just for our hearts. Kyash, you killed Triadas what’s his name...”

“Teleken. I’d have captured him alive if I could have. Strategically it would have better, actually, because I’d have been able to truth-drug him. It had nothing to do with our hearts.”

“Look, Cheng.” Her green eyes, same as Krena’s, creased with pain too much for her years, which were nineteen. “I won’t pretty it up; plain and simple, I want revenge. I don’t care about anything else. I just want to make them all hurt, for what they did to us. Don’t you? Krena was your friend.”

“I am making them all hurt. We all are, now that we’re beating them. But their pain in and of itself is not my mandate. My mandate is to get them out of here. Don’t take me wrong... I know how it is. I know how it feels.” I felt as if I was lying even as I said the truth. I would kiss the hand that killed friends of mine.

“Executing him will get him out of Yeola-e faster,” she said, with a touch of a smirk. Little do you know: sending him back to Arko is probably execution. It works the other way around just as well. I have to accept, I just might have to… My mind recoiled again. Kill that beauty? Kill that greatness? It felt so wrong it must be against All-Spirit itself.

“He’s out of the war, so I’ve already done all I am mandated to with him,” I said. “Except get any value I might get.”

She turned away from me hard, and did a flurry of hand-blows in sheer frustration. No one around looked at all surprised; outbursts of emotion are nothing in an occupied land. “Child-raper gets out of it with his life... and his wholeness and we just.... let him?” When she turned back to me, she was almost in tears. I had only ever seen her as a carefree girl before I’d come home.

“Lurao, did he commit a crime?”

“Isn’t it illegal for them to be here, by our laws? Isn’t that enough of a crime? Burning and hanging and torturing and raping children?”

“Yes, but whose crime is it? Are there any reports of him personally doing such things? Not that I’ve heard, and I’d have heard. People hate him for what he did in battle. He was sent; he was following orders. He is a solas... relinquished his will, in effect, to his Imperator. He killed so many because he’s so good at it.”

“Fine.” Her face was white with rage. “I’ll get a petition started then. There’s enough relatives and friends of people he’s killed!”

“Lurao...” All-Spirit… how do I argue this? She is semana. Kall is not. I am a traitor to Krena’s spirit. “May I ask you to look at it this way? What good would his death do? True good, not just slaking hatred? Or perhaps this way... say we kill him, and then they somehow happen to capture me. We don’t have him to trade, do we? And they don’t feel so inclined to mercy.”

“Then we should torture the straw-haired shit-eater while we’re waiting. You could have people do to him what Kurkas did to you while waiting for ransom.”

“Kurkas did that to me. Not Kallijas. We get Kurkas into our hands, that’s a different story.”

She stood staring at me for a while, considering. I kept my eyes on hers. Can she see somehow? Can she tell? Does it show? “You want to keep your options around the shit-spawn open,” she said, finally. “I understand. I’ll back off, Chevenga. Just remember I’m in line if the line starts to move.”

“Absolutely, Lurao,” I said. “Near the head of the line.” She turned and went, and I had my victory, for now, one that left the taste of shit in my mouth.

That night I sent Minakis out and sat with Kallijas again. “You were right,” I had to say. “He did not offer enough for you.”

“And your people want me dead.”

“Well, not all of them.” Only maybe nine hundred and ninety-nine in a thousand.

“Would it help their grieving if I offered my breath to them, through your hands? I’d trust you to bring me back, Sheng. Even more than once should they demand it.”

What an Arkan thing to think of. “I’m not going to do that to you.” I couldn’t even begin to imagine it. I’d thought I’d noticed my feeling for him ebbing over the day, and had been reassured; it had come roaring back like flames in a blast of wind the moment I saw his face.

“Because it would seem too much like your Kiss of the Lake and be seen as blasphemy?”

“No, it’s nothing like the Kiss of the Lake. You aren’t held down for that.”

“You wouldn’t have to tie me down either, if it is something I freely offer.”

“Kall… you’ve never had it done to you, have you?” He stared at me, and I saw the reminder flicker across his face, you were tortured by Mahid, along with the pain of taking it on himself.

“I have,” I said, willing my tongue not to lock up. I felt the spike of horror through me anyway. People think it just agonizes the lungs and the throat and the mouth and nose. It hurts from head to toe. “I don’t think… I could do it to anyone.” Well... Kurkas, perhaps. And Second Amitzas Mahid, perhaps. “Certainly not you. And I wouldn’t let anyone else do it; they’d kill you. What I should do is send you… somewhere… away from me, and the army. I just don’t want to.”

“I’m sorry I’m such trouble to you. I don’t want to go away from you either.”

“When they remind me that someone you killed was a friend of mine... that’s when my heart is torn in two the most.” What would Krena think, to see me here with his killer? Or if he could know what I felt?

Kallijas was silent for a bit, and I said nothing into it. “How many, Sheng?” he said finally, very softly. “What were their names?”

“Six,” I said. “That I know of. None of them close enough to call heart-sibs... but all friends. I have a lot of friends. Though not so many as I did.” I listed their names off to him. “But what’s that to you? You couldn’t put a name to a face.”

“I can add their names to my prayers. The God will know.”

“Why don’t you just pray for every Yeoli you’ve killed? There’s nothing special about those who were friends of mine, except to me.”

“I already do, Sheng. I pray for every man I’ve ever—warrior, I mean, I’ve killed. But...to name someone is even stronger.”

I listed them off again. “You want me to teach you each one?”

“Yes, please, if you would.” He is not doing this for them, I thought, but for me. For them because they are my friends. But he could hardly do it for every person he’d killed, any more than I could.

“Krena Shae-Lasinga...” I thought I’d teach him just the names, but found myself saying more. “He was closest of all, because he was from here. I knew him from childhood. Red-brown hair, light, easy smile—well, you wouldn’t have seen that. Built wiry, a little taller than me, very, very fast, green eyes, he had a mole here...” I was suddenly in tears. “He was the one most likely, if you were down in the dumps, to cheer you up by putting a dead mouse in your boot. When I was competing in the Circle School Games, he won a Golden Meadow-Flop by doing a game-death that involved a double back-flip… you wouldn’t know what that means.” He made me explain it all. “When I left, he was about to get married; I told him I’d be back for his wedding. You killed him somewhere around Tinga-e. It would have been very hard to do. Do you remember?”

“I think so,” he said, but I knew he might be telling a lie of kindness.

“Rina Lakrisi… she was from Thara-e, and she’d say ‘This is such a small town, so few restaurants, nothing to do but sex,’ which was supposedly a complaint. She was about up to my ear, ash blond hair, though you wouldn’t have seen it except for what peeked under her helmet, hazel eyes, kind of a sweet face and a birthmark here… she was saying she’d be a warrior until she turned thirty and then settle down, breed goats—that was what she liked doing the most—and raise a family. I had a roll in the heather with her once, just as friends. She would have been nineteen when you killed her.”

I went on with all six of them. He turned over and buried his face in the pillow on the third, but asked me to keep going, and listened.

I knew how it was for him. On the field, we forget that every death-blow is the end of all the complexity and beauty a life is, the end of every relationship that person has, the end of their every dream or plan, the end of all their quirks and habits, of every particular thing that those who love them love them for, the end of their every skill, and the loss of everything they might have done. Kallijas wept, I knew by the harmony between us, not only for these six, but for everyone he’d killed, thinking of them this way. So did I, for everyone I had. We clung, and leaned our heads on each other’s shoulders, and wept for what war is, and that it existed at all.